More and more I print directly out of C1. In the beginning, it was only for contact sheets. But when I saw what was possible, I started to use C1 for printing as a default. Now, only for special tasks do I switch over to PS.

Here are a few questions and observations.

First of all, I was wondering whether there was any technical advantage for printing the RAW file directly out of the converter. I don't know how that process works. Does Capture One generate a sort of temporary TIFF (or the like) to print from? In which case, the perceived advantage when comparing to printing with PS would not exist, I guess?! I tend to believe that I see cleaner files when printing from within C1 (But that's maybe wishful thinking ,as it would be a so much simpler and elegant work-flow ).

Then there is the question of Sharpening. Here also, I believe I noticed cleaner files, less artefact's than with PhotoKit (Nick or whatever else I tried). I have only to prepare the file once for all output sizes! No resampling, up or down sizing etc. I would greatly appreciate, if you could share your practice regarding ink-jet output oriented sharpening in C1.

Soft proofing is definitely not possible the way I am used to do it, because I can't compare side by side. I can only toggle between two differently optimized variants AND associated output profiles. One variant for the master version and one for the specific medium. For the profiles, best practice I found till now, like a PhaseOne training video indicates, is setting the paper profile in one process recipe and a very large one, like the camera profile itself in another one. This allows for quicker switching between profiles than with >View>Proof Profile. Still it is far from being as useful as a side by side comparison in PS. What do you do?

Lastly, the two other things I miss most are the healing brush and the clone tool.

Other than that, I just wish C1 would be more stable and faster here under Win7x64 16RAM (Why is it that PS CS5 can do so much more and be so much more stable and all that while being ultra responsive at the speed of light?)

You answered your own question, at least for me. I soft-proof, so still export to CS5 before printing. I also like to do occasional output sharpening, and prefer using CS5 for this as I base it on print size.

Re spot healing brush, you do have an EXCELLENT spot tool in C1. I find the latest build of 6.1 pretty spiffy on my 64-bit Macs.

- The technical question remains though: How does, a Raw converter's print engine work? Does C1 print from a generated Tiff (or the like)? In which case, it is obvious that the better results I get are just the fruit of my imagination (or have other causes).

- So what are c1's new print capabilities for? I mean for somebody soft-proofing? Only for contact sheets?

- I used to soft-proof in the Photoshop way more often. I can still soft-proof in the old fashion, by using the C1 preview routine I mentioned in the opening post, combined with printing out a few test strips or even small prints (as you are not fixed to a particular size). Why did I start do do that? Because I have the impression that the result is cleaner.

- Regarding output sharpening, the advantage of printing out of C1 would be that you do NOT have to take into consideration print size, as the sharpening will proportionally diminishes and increases while you fix the output size. So there is no need, to a certain degree, for an output sharpening for each print size separately, as far as I can tell!

- Yes there is the spot healing tool, but PSCS5 healing brush et al is another league and works differently.

- You are telling me that C1 6.1 is as fast and stable as PSCS5 on your 64-bit Mac? How can that be? Again, here on win7x64 16RAM and ATI HD5770 there is a tremendous difference between them. PSCS5 is lightning fast even with very big LF neg scans in multiple layers! In comparison C1 takes sometimes forever to render even a 5d MrkII file.

In the last few weeks I have started to print tests from C1 v6 to compare large print (24 x 30-36") quality against my output from LR3. While I am still having issues with regard to color calibration and soft proofing, I am overwhelmed by the print characteristics directly out of C1 as compared to LR3. Completely aside from C1's much better ability to handle issues such as chromatic aberration, recovery of shadows and highlights, sharpening, and noise in my Phase One P30 files, I am finding that printing TIFF files adjusted in C1 directly from C1 vs. printing the same TIFF from LR3 results in a much higher quality print. C1 prints are sharper, and have more depth and a much smoother, more natural tonality. I will be looking for a good soft proofing solution, as well as a way to handle DAM, but I will definitely be doing my printing from C1 from this point forward.